Outskirts Press, INC.

Beloved by some, ridiculed by others.

William R. King devoted most of his adult life to public service. North Carolina born, King migrated to the newly established Alabama Territory in 1819 and became a prominent member of the affluent, slave-holding cotton planter aristocracy. King not only helped found a city but also personally named the new community. After his adopted territorial home was admitted as the Union’s 22nd state, King served as one of Alabama’s first U.S. Senators. King spent nearly three decades serving in the Senate, interrupted by an influential two-year stint as U.S. Ambassador to France. An anomaly in the Antebelleum-era Deep South, King staunchly advocated maintaining and perpetuating the institution slavery but never transformed into a fire-eating secessionist. As a Moderate Democrat in the Heart of Dixie, King was a compromiser who endeavored to ease sectional divide. Only death prevented him from witnessing inevitable disunion and the horrors of the Civil War. While often overlooked in the annals of American history, King’s journey was noteworthy, controversial, and ultimately tragic. Historians have frequently spent more time questioning King’s presumed sexual orientation than documenting his accomplishments. William R. King was an active participant during a tumultuous era in American history. He witnessed the United States become a world power while the nation, not yet a century-old, simultaneously approached bloody disunion over slavery.